Basically, a (optional of course) sidebar with letter you can click on to take you to the letter of the currently open node(s).

Ideally, at least for me, repeated clicks on the same letter would cycle through the other open nodes..

IE if you had artists and albums opened, and you pressed "G" twice, it would take you to the album node starting with "G".

It would be desirable to have this behaviour include all nodes (open) even custom ones like magicnode and album art nodes, if possible.

This IMO would save a huge amount of time scrolling thru a tree to get to the node you want. Yes, I am aware you can type the first few letters, however this may or may not be convenient as clicking the sidebar. And if it was smart enough to cycle through open nodes, it would be even better than typing in some cases.

Ideally, at least for me, repeated clicks on the same letter would cycle through the other open nodes..

If you not yet pushed a letter button, but you are already on a node starting with that letter:
do you want to go to the first occurence with such a letter (within the current parent node), or do you want to continue just as if you came on that node by pushing the letter button, and go to the next occurence that starts with that letter?
(Current behaviour: go to first occurence)

If you're at the last occurence of a node starting with the letter from the button:
do you want the letter button to go to the first occurence or do you want to stay there?
(Current behaviour: stay there)

Do you want this behaviour when you are on a parent node? e.g. if the "Artists" node is closed but selected: do you want to go to artist "AAAAA" when you click the letter button (so open the Artist node, and go to the child node starting with A), or do you want to stay at the same level like the Artist parent node? (And search if there's a node starting with A on the same level (like "Artist" or "Album"))?
(Current behaviour: works on parent nodes too, so it automaticly searches child nodes. Script works only for "Title", "Artist", "Album", "Genre" nodes.)
If you want this behaviour to work for all nodes, then you will first have to open a parent node and select a child node, before you can go to the child node starting with the letter of the letter button. (This would be more logical in the context of MediaMonkey's tree usage AND FASTER!)

Personally, I would like it to go through any open node first, starting with current position.

If no nodes are open, then possibly open the artist node, then album node and alternate between them. (meaning, if no nodes are open, and I click "E", it will open artists and go to the first "E", then I click "E" again, it will go to the first album "E".

But, I can understand if someone else wants different behaviour. Some type of user preferences would be convenient.

BTW, if you want to see how this works, anyone can download the alltunes application. You do not need an account to explore it, also it may have some harder to find album art!

How it currently works:
=======================
Possibility to ignore prefixes like "The" (can be enabled/disabled, prefixes can be added)
Always ignores the ' character (when not in the "Title" node) in the way that MediaMonkey does it
(as default: ignores the "The" prefix)
"first instance" = first node that matches the button pressed
"next instance" = next (sibling) node that matches the button pressed, when the previously selected node was also a match
Goes to the "first instance" child node of the selected main Title, Artist, Album or Genre node
If a such a child node is already selected, it goes to the "first instance" sibling node, unless the button was already used to go to the currently selected node (there was already a match using the button). In that case, it goes to the "next instance"
If a child node of the above mentioned child nodes is selected (the Artist>Album, Genre>Artist and Genre>Artist>Album nodes), it goes to the first instance for the above mentioned child nodes.
The script supposes:
--------------------
... that it is possible that not all entries are in alphabetical order (like when you just changed something)
- That means that the script always searches from the first possible node, until it finds a match.
- If the last matching node is reached, the script stays on the same place.
The reverse supposition would mean that the script could be made a little bit faster (if F is selected and the G button is pushed, then the script would start from the selected node instead of starting from the beginning)
Also, if the last matching node is reached, it could be made that script goes back to the first matching node.

In my opinion, that (except from "the script supposes") is the most logical thing to do.
If MediaMonkey would automaticly put edited nodes in the right place (alphabetically), I would take the "reverse supposition" immediately.

Explanation:
- Jumping from one main node to another (like Artist to Album) seems kind of confusing to me (so I'd rather have the script only work on the current node).
- Because the "child nodes of the child nodes" usually aren't very numerous (like albums from a certain artist), the script takes their parent node level to work on (the "above mentioned" child nodes).
One exception that seems logical to make is the "genre" child node, that mostly contains a large number of entries (artists).Changing this behaviour can easily be done, if this is wanted.

Hopefully you can understand something from my unclear explanation.
Confused, I'm sorry if I made you more confused now...

Steegy wrote:BTW: I didn't bother to add a show/hide button for the panel yet. That means that if you closed the panel, you will have to restart MediaMonkey to get it back. In a later phase, this can (and probably will) easily be added (as button on the "library shortcuts/navigation bar"). Just to avoid questions about this...
Not that this should be really necessary of course.

Might I suggest putting it into the "view" main menu, where you can show/hide the other main panels. Begges Simple Lyrics Viewer seems to have a nice implementation like that.

BTW, this seems work good except when you don't have a 'library subnode' selected (ie album/artist/genre/etc).

It would be convenient if it were usable from the 'now playing' window, or anywhere really. I would guess that having a user selectable 'default go to node' would be appropriate. (ie start with 'artist' node if no appropriate node is currently selected)

I also wonder if a vertical arrangement might be more space conservative, but I can see folks have a preference either way.

A couple pics, I don't know if this is a MM issue or can be worked around via script:

Maximized ->

MM does not seem to save states between normal and maximized window modes.

Last edited by Teknojnky on Sat Apr 29, 2006 5:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

BTW, this seems work good except when you don't have a 'library subnode' selected (ie album/artist/genre/etc).

That's by design. Changes can be made of course.
I'd prefer to wait some time, to wait for other reactions. Is that OK?

I also wonder if a vertical arrangement might be more space conservative

Indeed, that was the plan, but that's not possible yet.
A toolbar can be partially put along the library view, but in most cases it wouldn't be long enough to fit all buttons (and it would be very "uncustomisable").
A panel (best way) can only be docked above or below the tree view.
I will request better docking support (support all possible docking positions). That will be a solution for this. I already asked for an option to hide the panel's title bar.
I do think that AllMusic's interface is the nicest, but this is, as already said, not yet possible.

Concerning the "maximised" window mode: I have no problems with it, I just tested it. Maybe you can identify the problem better, and if necessary say what's wrong or post a bug report.